Meet Daneya

Daneya Esgar is a Pueblo native who has represented the communities of Pueblo, Beulah, Colorado City, and Rye since January 2015.

In her two-terms in the Colorado House of Representatives, Daneya has emerged as an effective leader that brings home real results for the people of Colorado and House District 46. In three years, she has passed more than 25 laws that have addressed a gamut of issues affecting Coloradans. She has worked to treat the opioid crisis and increase health care access, fought for energy consumers, and sought solutions to put Coloradans back to work.

Daneya works with the House leadership team as the Majority Caucus Chair. She is also the Chair of the Capital Development Committee and Vice-Chair of the House Health, Insurance, and Environment Committee. She also sits on the House Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resource Committee as well as the House Transportation and Energy Committee.

This journalist turned advocate has brought the values she learned in Southern Colorado to the statehouse, earning and embracing the nickname “Representative Pueblo.” Never ashamed to stand up for her community and the well-being of Coloradans, Daneya has proven to be an effective legislator who is unafraid to work across the aisle to move Colorado forward.

Daneya is the first openly LGBTQ individual to serve Pueblo in the statehouse, she lives in Pueblo with her wife and two golden retrievers.

A New Era of Local Leadership

Esgar: Always ready ‘to speak out’ against injustice

[From the Pueblo Chieftain] There is a point at which Daneya Esgar will say, “Enough.” And it’s her willingness to take a stand at that point that has defined her relatively young life. “It always comes from the heart,” the 34-year-old said recently. “I try hard not to be confrontational. I believe in talking things through. But if there is something wrong, damn right I’m going to speak out.” The born-and-raised Puebloan — she is the great-granddaughter of the late Police Chief Bob Mayber and the granddaughter of two steelworkers — found her voice while a student at South High School. “I was friends with a boy who was openly gay, no apologies, and when he came under criticism, I would organize people around him to support him,” she said.

“There were other issues. It was a time when there were a lot of teenage pregnancies at South,and when other students would treat them like they really were not people, I would jump in and say, ‘Hey, not everyone knows their circumstances or what they’re going through.’

“I just can’t stand by and be quiet when someone is unfairly critical.” It also was at South that she discovered what she thought would be her life’s career: Journalism. Working for the student paper, she stirred things up. Once, she wrote a scathing article about a controversy involving a student from a well-known Pueblo family.

“The administration threatened me, saying they wouldn’t let me graduate if I didn’t reveal my sources,” she said. “I didn’t and I graduated.” You might have the impression at this point that Esgar is some loudmouth, imposing figure that just likes being militant. That is not the case.

Small in stature and soft-spoken, Esgar insists that she prefers dialogue, likes discussing controversial issues in hopes of finding mutual ground. “I believe you can disagree and still get along,” she said.